Papa Massata Diack (pictured above), the son of former International Athletics Federation president Lamine Diack (who will die in December 2021), has been given his fate. On Thursday 9 March, the Paris Court of Appeal upheld his five-year prison sentence for corruption in the massive Russian doping scandal of 2011. But it is highly doubtful that the Senegalese will ever discover French prisons. The 57-year-old PMD lives in exile in his country and has always refused to leave it to answer summonses from French justice. The court has, however, reduced by half the fine imposed on him in the first instance. It is now set at 500,000 euros. The French court also upheld the 100,000 euro fine against Habib Cissé, Lamine Diack’s former legal advisor. But it suspended his three-year prison sentence. Finally, it reduced by half the amount awarded to World Athletics, which was claiming 10.5 million euros for moral damages. Papa Massa Diack’s lawyer, Marie-Sophie Goldschmidt, explained that she would discuss with her client a possible appeal to the Supreme Court. As a reminder, the Senegalese was convicted in September 2020 of complicity in a system of bribes to the IAAF, set up with the complicity of his father, Lamine Diack, to hide cases of blood doping of Russian athletes before the London 2012 Games.
